St. Petersburg Colleges Offer 23,000+ Budget Places for 2026
St. Petersburg has approved the distribution of budget places for admission to colleges and technical schools for the 2026 academic year. A total of 23,117 places are available to applicants, with an analysis of the city education committee«s order indicating a particular need for personnel in certain fields.
The city«s system of secondary professional education includes over 100 institutions, including colleges at universities. More than 18,000 budget places are concentrated in 35 colleges under the jurisdiction of the education committee. Among them are the Nekrasov Pedagogical College, numerous technical schools, the Fire and Rescue College, and the LOKON Academy.
Significant quotas have also been allocated to other departments:
- The Health Committee received over 3,000 places for medical colleges (a 7% increase compared to last year).
- The Culture Committee secured 670 places for creative specialties in seven institutions, such as the Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov music schools, the Roerich Art School, and the Boris Eifman Dance Academy.
- The Committees on Physical Culture and Sports, and Social Policy also oversee a number of colleges.
- Secondary professional education programs at universities, including Polytechnic University, Herzen State Pedagogical University, and the Agricultural University, provide for 775 budget places.
In 2025, St. Petersburg was among the cities where an experiment was conducted for college admission based on two OGE subjects instead of four. The measure affected 19 professions in 29 colleges and gathered about 5,000 applications.
The range of specialties in St. Petersburg colleges is extremely wide: from pedagogy and technology to art and culture. In the last admission cycle, the highest competition (8.7 applicants per place) was noted in construction programs. High demand also persisted for IT fields (on average 7 applicants per place), geodesy, automobile repair, as well as for the professions of cook and pastry chef. Among the unusual educational programs:
- Garden and Park and Landscape Construction
- Medical Massage
- Plant Growing Master
- Integration of Solutions Using AI Technologies
- Web Development
In terms of the number of budget places, Pedagogical College No. 1 named after N.A. Nekrasov leads, where they plan to admit nearly 1,500 future teachers. The top five also include the Metro Construction College, the Admiral D.N. Senyavin Marine Technical Academy, the Shipbuilding College, and the Okhta College. Among medical institutions, the Midwifery College stands out with a 12.5% increase in places. In the cultural sphere, the most places (235) are allocated for training librarians at the Library and Information Technology Technical School.
The most accessible specialties for applicants are those with the highest number of budget places:
- «Primary School Teacher» — 475 places at Nekrasov College.
- «Nursing» — from 200 to 350 places in several medical colleges.
- «Preschool Education» — 325 places in a pedagogical college.
Among other professions with high quotas are costume designer, assistant driver, restorer, and cook.
